There is no other wisdom and no other hope for us but that we grow wise.

What Does a Vulcan Listen To?

In the Earth year 1957, a Vulcan research vessel went down in Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania, with four crewmen aboard. Although the captain perished, officers Stron and T’Mir were later recovered without incident, but the fourth crewman was inadvertently left behind, believed by the Vulcan authorities to have also perished and his body adequately buried or incinerated.1 But this Vulcan male, anthropologist and navigator Mestral, managed to live on Earth for over a century before he was detected. He was promptly recovered after First Contact.

On April 5, 2063, the crew of the T’Plana-Hath not only detected Zefram Cochrane’s warp-drive signature but also Mestral’s life-signs and were directed to make contact with humanity and to retrieve Mestral. He was brought back to Vulcan for debriefing before the High Command, which was not only curious about his first-hand experience living among humans, but was also anxious to learn how much human behavior had polluted Mestral’s Vulcan bearing. At that time, many in the High Command had little hope for humanity and viewed humans with contempt.

The transcripts of the interviews with Mestral have just been declassified. Below is a segment covering a topic many humans find fascinating: what do Vulcans listen to? Or, more precisely, what human music does a Vulcan living on Earth in the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century, far removed from the culture of his homeworld, find acceptable and even…pleasing? This segment of the interrogation was conducted by Minister Sepek, who not only taught at the Vulcan Science Academy as Professor of Xenopsychology, but also served as Secretary for Offworld Affairs.

Sepek: Forty billion terabytes of data classified as music have been recovered from your personal devices. This unprecedented amount suggests that you spent considerable time listening to Terran music.

Mestral: That is a correct assumption.

Sepek: Do you find it…enjoyable?

Mestral: Yes.

Sepek: We selected for review two songs at random from the collection labeled “Popular Music.” They are titled Wild Thing and Disco Duck. We found no reason to preserve this category of Terran music in the Vulcan Archives. And yet you have collected 4,256,172 songs, including songs which predate your arrival on Earth. Enlighten us.

Mestral: I might point out, Ministers, that your sample size – given the extent of the collection – was inadequate and therefore your summation inconclusive. Terran popular music is highly varied in its presentation.

Sepek: Be that as it may….

Mestral: If you will allow me to present some further samples, I can demonstrate to you the high degree of skill and, in some cases, “Vulcanness” in popular Terran music.

[A brief discussion ensues among the High Command. The consensus is to allow Mestral to continue with his presentation. Links to the popular Youtube site containing the selected songs are embedded in this transcript.]

Sepek: Continue.

Mestral: The first group of Terran musicians I would like to present to you is the Moody Blues, active from the mid 1960s and into the early decades of the twenty-first century. Their music was hailed as “the thinking-man’s rock ‘n’ roll” and it was most popular during the Vietnam War.

Sepek: The name of this band suggests that its members or their music are highly emotional.

Mestral: Indeed. Many humans found their music a way to explore and go beyond their emotions to achieve a higher level of consciousness.

Sepek: Such a practice is dangerous. In order to achieve a higher state of consciousness, one must suppress the emotions.

Mestral: If I may demonstrate, Ministers, here is an example every Vulcan explorer can relate to.

Sepek: Correct me if I’m wrong, but this song dates to 1967, the very height of the counter-culture’s experimentation with psychedelic drugs. Does humanity need to ingest mind-altering substances to reach a higher state of consciousness? Is this humanity’s understanding of the universe?

Mestral: Not at all. Consider the work of the Dalai Lama.

Sepek: We are considering the work of the Moody Blues. Have you anything more to say about these Terran musicians?

Mestral: A good deal more. This next song demonstrates that these five musicians from England felt the interconnectedness of all humanity and humanity’s ultimate connection to the universe. Although the song is performed in a minor key, indicative of great loss and urgency, the lyrics suggest hope that all mankind will understand this oneness. It is then that hostilities will cease.

Sepek: Perhaps, but these are just five humans out of 256 billion. You spoke of a “Vulcanness” you found in Terran popular music. Please clarify.

Mestral: This next group of modern musicians known as Dead Can Dance….

Sepek: An ominous name.

Mestral: Their music features influences from multiple cultures and ancient traditions. This first song could have been written by a follower of Surak. Due to the deep echo effect, you may not be able to hear the lyrics, but the opening stanza is this:

Surak teaches us, “It is not the withdrawal from our world that will save it, but instead the desire to go out and transform it.”2

Sepek: Indeed. I think we can all agree to mark this song for preservation. [There is a consensus among the High Command].

Mestral: I have other examples from Dead Can Dance, which several musicologists agree mimic ancient Vulcan traditions. This song, known as Cantara, is very close in instrumentation, vocalization, melody, and rhythm to the te-Vikram dance ritual used to evoke a state of euphoria. Only their priestly castes of the deep desert are allowed to perform the song, and until recently, it was a closely guarded ritual of the Brotherhood. Yet here is something very similar from Earth.

Sepek: Truly astonishing. Are you suggesting, Mestral, that there has been a connection between Vulcan and Earth prior to First Contact and prior to your violation of the Prime Directive?

Mestral: I make no suggestions, Minister, only observations. Within the scientific community, the hypothesis put forth by the noted archaeologist Professor Richard Galen is generally accepted, namely that many humanoid species were seeded on their home planets by the ancient race referred to as The Preservers. Ancient Vulcan texts speak of the Vhorani, the Ancient Ones, who came from Vorta Vor, the Wellspring of Creation.3 And here, perhaps Dead Can Dance sing of them or of their offspring in this song.

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8 responses to “What Does a Vulcan Listen To?”

Another thing to contemplate: forgive me if I cannot explain this fully, for I have difficulties understanding it myself. Since audio and visual information isn’t destroyed, it in a sense ends up in space. Humans are natural “receivers.” If someone is on the right “wavelength,” whether meditating or dreaming, these information packets are picked up by the subconscious during those states. Although these mental states aren’t always necessary, “reception” of this information can occur while the person is wide awake and alert.

I don’t know the precise mechanism to cause this — possibly something with quantum mechanics/physics; some brain-twisting hard thing. But something must be going on for one to receive full color images of a future even by a dream.

I agree Mestral seemed a very sweet person. He seemed to like the “I Love Lucy” show. “The Honeymooners” might bother him; same for “The Three Stooges,” at least until he knew the cultural context. As for a book, maybe we can write that. 🙂 I highly doubt one book could cover over one hundred years of adventures here!